SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BEA Systems, Inc. , a world leader in enterprise infrastructure software, today announced that a new IDG Research survey has revealed that BEA is the industry's top service oriented architecture (SOA) thought leader, beating out IBM and Oracle. The survey's qualified respondents ranked BEA number one among companies they would consider for SOA solutions and services in the next 12 months.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents (74 percent) named BEA as an SOA thought leader. IBM and Oracle were named by 62 percent and 38 percent of respondents, respectively. Sixty percent of respondents named BEA a company they would consider working with to deploy SOA solutions and services in the next 12 months. IBM was named by 43 percent, and Oracle was named by 30 percent.

"Being recognized as the SOA thought leader is a clear signal that the industry is embracing our vision of how the service infrastructure market will evolve," said Bruce Graham, vice president of BEA consulting and worldwide SOA practice leader. "What's even more exciting is the increase in planned adoption of SOA this year. More companies are realizing that SOA is the future of IT and business, and our goal is to help those leaders take their SOA from pilot to production."

SOA is an architectural approach utilized by IT that organizes the discrete functions contained in enterprise applications into standards-based services that may be combined, configured and reused on the fly to meet the ever-changing dynamics of business. This modular approach to IT can contribute to a company's flexibility, agility and organizational speed.

The term "service infrastructure," an emerging enterprise software category closely tied to SOA, was understood as a term by 95 percent of respondents. The category combines software tools and component products that reflect the movement to SOA and Web services, including a shared backbone of messaging, management, data integration and security services infrastructure.

The IDG survey also revealed that SOA is gaining momentum. The number of respondents who said their company considers SOA a critical or high priority for the next 12 months increased to 52 percent, up 10 percent from a similar study conducted by IDG Research in May 2005. In addition, 79 percent of respondents said SOA would be a critical or high priority in the next five years, an 18 percent increase from the survey that was conducted nine months ago.

Other key findings from the survey include the following: -- Enterprise-wide deployments of SOA have doubled from 8 percent to 16 percent in the past nine months -- The number of companies that have created an enterprise architecture group rose from 68 percent to 83 percent in the past nine months -- Lack of skills or training, the need to build a new governance team/model and IT and business organizational barriers were cited as the top three expected challenges in deploying a SOA

For more information on SOA, please visit the BEA Resource Center at: http://www.bea.com/soa

Survey Methodology:

Independent IDG researchers conducted the latest survey, which took place in December 2005 and January 2006 and was co-sponsored by BEA. To conduct the survey, IDG Research recruited respondents by email. Cookies were utilized to ensure that each selected respondent only vote once. Qualified respondents were required to be:

-- Employed in IT management or in a corporate/business unit management function or position at a company with 500 or more employees -- Currently evaluating, screening, planning, pilot testing or implementing a SOA -- Involved with SOA initiatives and purchase decisions

Out of 1,040 individuals who responded, 521 met all screening criteria. The margin of error is +/- 4.3 percent.

About IDG Research

IDG Research Services specializes in marketing and media-related research for technology marketers. As a division of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading technology media, research, and event company, IDG Research Services brings the resources and experience of a large, global company to its clients in the form of a small, customer-focused business. For more information please visit http://www.idgresearchservices.com/.

About BEA

BEA Systems, Inc. is a world leader in enterprise infrastructure software, providing standards-based platforms to accelerate the secure flow of information and services. BEA product lines -- WebLogic(R), Tuxedo(R), JRockit(R) and the new AquaLogic(TM) family of Service Infrastructure -- help customers reduce IT complexity and successfully deploy Service Oriented Architectures to improve business agility and efficiency. For more information please visit http://www.bea.com/.

BEA, Tuxedo, WebLogic, and BEA WebLogic Server are registered trademarks and BEA WebLogic Enterprise Platform, BEA WebLogic Integration, BEA WebLogic Portal, BEA WebLogic JRockit, BEA WebLogic Platform, BEA WebLogic Express, BEA WebLogic Workshop, BEA WebLogic Java Adapter for Mainframe, BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic, BEA eLink and BEA WebLogic Enterprise Security are trademarks of BEA Systems, Inc. All other company and product names may be the subject of intellectual property rights reserved by third parties.

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:

CONTACT: Jim Rivas of BEA Systems, Inc., +1-212-966-2848 or
james.rivas@bea.com; Dave Reddy of Weber Shandwick Worldwide, +1-650-868-4659
or dreddy@webershandwick.com, for BEA Systems, Inc.; http://www.bea.com/news; or
+1-408-570-8004

Web site: http://www.bea.com/